April 2024

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Today was an unusually warm day. Of course, I dressed for a Maryland day in late October and ended up more with a mid-September Maryland day, so I was a bit warm, though Johnny came in the office, blinked, and said, "You look nice today!" So I guess the new skirt works.

Because of the weather, I suppose, we are in the midst of another ladybug invasion at work. As many of you know, the WAU is based out of an old house (so I do, in fact, work out of a bedroom, albeit without a bed), and according to my mom, ladybugs like to nest in old wood. We have plenty of that. So we routinely have ladybug invasions in our office/house.

About two weeks ago, I heard the telltale tickticktick of ladybugs clicking against my fluorescent light. I looked up and, sure enough, there were dozens of them. As kind of an interesting experiment, I decided to catch and collect them in an empty water bottle. When I was finished in my office, they covered the bottom of the bottle. I went over to Johnny's office to show him and ended up catching all of them in his office too. (Amusingly, Johnny is afraid of ladybugs. Not terrified but they do bug him. *winces at admittedly bad pun* He claims that they fly into him and get stuck in his shirt collar and claims that they "smell like lightning bugs," which they do. So I try to alleviate insect-related situations for him, when they arise in our office. It does seem like if we are going to get a wasp nest, it will be outside of his--not my--window. I'd have fun watching it, but he's terrified. Alas.)

I ended up with about one hundred ladybugs in my water bottle. We then went over the Mr. Vernon's old office, and there were about two hundred more over there, so we just stared into his office for a few seconds, agog, then solved the problem by closing the door.

Of course, I released my ladybugs outside. An hour later, twelve new ones had entered my office, but they were on their own. The next day, Johnny was vacuuming them off of his ceiling.

It got cold, and the ladybugs disappeared somewhat. But when it warmed today, they came back with a vengeance. When I walked down to the mailbox before lunch, they were pinging into me and clinging to my clothes. Johnny always claims that they get stuck on him and then end up in his car, and I've always laughed this off, but this did happen to me today so I guess I need to take his ladybug-related concerns a little more seriously.

On a non-insect-related note, the new LJ feature that allows me to monitor who adds me as a friend has turned me on to an interesting phenomenon: drive-by friendings. Apparently, people monitor the recent postings and friend anyone who posts within a certain period. If they are not friended back, they remove the person from their flist. This has happened to me twice now since I set my LJ to alert me to new friends; in the first instance, I posted twice in quick succession, and the same person friended and unfriended me twice. I find this interesting because--and maybe this has to do with how I use LJ compared to how some people use it--I don't see why one would want to friend a total stranger who has zero mutual interests. Nor do I see how someone with 800 friends could possibly read his or her flist every day. I have sixty-two people on my flist--many of them redundant journals, i.e. multiple journals belonging to the same person--and there are times when I simply cannot keep up with everyone to the degree that I would like.

I wonder if someone will friend me when I post this.

Well, the cold has moved from my throat (Saturday) to my nose (Sunday) to my lungs (Monday), which means that I am coughing and tugging my hip again. It is nearly impossible to cough without hurting myself. So all of the progress that I have made by resting and keeping off of my hip is slowly coming undone. That's annoying.

Bobby and I went to the movies to see the original Halloween on the big screen tonight. It was really cool. Tomorrow's my big day, my favorite holiday! Bobby has class but is skipping pickup hockey to come home and spend Halloween with me. We have a movie to watch and will take our usual walk through the historic district, trying to spot ghosts.

Happy Halloween, everyone! Have fun, be safe, and may the spirits be with you.

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